It's the Happy Ending
Gypsy Life is a 1945 animated short film (7 minutes) directed by Connie Rasinki ("J. Conrad Rasinski
", that is), produced by Paul Terry for the Terrytoons studio.
It's a Mighty Mouse cartoon. A Romani caravan—or rather, a bunch of mice that look like a Romani caravan—is trundling through the forest. They're singing songs and enjoying themselves until they are spotted by some really freaky looking cat-bat creatures. The weird cat-bats swoop down on the Romani mice, hoping, of course, to eat them until the heroic Mighty Mouse comes to the rescue.
Gypsy Life provides examples of:
- Foot Popping: The female mouse at the end of the cartoon as she and Mighty Mouse are kissing.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: The female mouse is plummeting down to Earth, where the open mouth of a crocodile awaits. She somehow manages to hover in midair just above the crocodile until Mighty Mouse flies over and saves her.
- Have a Gay Old Time: One of the lyrics to the opening song "Gypsy Life" states that "a gypsy's life is ever gay."
- Hot Gypsy Woman: The one noticeably female mouse is drawn to be sexually attractive. She is busty and leggy, wears a yellow shirt with a red skirt, and shakes a tambourine while dancing to the music of another mouse playing violin.
- Kidnapping Bird of Prey: Well, they're bats—cat-bats?—but they swoop down on the caravan and carry off the pretty female mouse in this manner.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: The bizarre cat-bats are bats because they have wings and they hang upside down from the roof of a cave. But they also have the faces and paws of cats.
- The Musical: All the dialogue is sung.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The last danger Mighty Mouse saves the female mouse from is falling into the jaws of a crocodile in a pond.
- Smooch of Victory: The female mouse plants a big one on Mighty Mouse at the end.
- The Smurfette Principle: The female Romani—apparently not Mighty Mouse's regular Love Interest Pearl Pureheart, unless it's Pearl in Brownface, so let's hope not—is the only girl in the Romani caravan. All the other are identically drawn generic mice.
- Title Drop: Starts off with a song called—"Gypsy Life".
